May 11, 2010

Salty Sake Cup

One of my drinking friends recently visited Tobacco and Salt Museum and bought a sake cup made of salt there. We decided to get together and drink some sake from this cup called "shio-guinomi."

There has been a custom that people place some salt on the edge of a masu (box-shaped wooden sake-drinking vessel) and drink sake from it while licking some salt at times.

In old days, when people were poor and had difficulty to prepare good stuff to be paired with sake, salt was seemingly a handy alternative to something to be paired with sake, but using salt in this way had to be sound somehow miserable. Now that the Japanese people are not so poor as they were after World War II, drinking sake only with salt may sound stylish since it seems that such sake drinkers love sake and really want to enjoy sake.

This salt sake cup is said to have been produced after the producer was inspired from the custom of using a masu on whose edge some salt is placed. Salt tastes only salty, but drinking from this salt cup was an interesting experience.

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